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1x Programming

tim.mcnamara.nz

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Re: 1x Programming

#151

Post by vlunkr »

angarg12 wrote: post #25

I praise 1x programmers, but for reasons that might go against the grain in HN. I'm from Spain so our working ethic is different from the Anglo-Saxon world. "Work to live, don't live to work" as the saying goes. My principles for a 1x programmer: * Work is a means to an end. A job should support the lifestyle you want to achieve, not be an end on itself. * 9-to-5 is a perfectly reasonable schedule. Fiercely protects…

I've been developing professionally for about 10 years in the US, and I feel like just in that time frame, the culture is shifting more in this relaxed direction. The really intense work ethic was pushed by the startup culture. People thought they could be the next Zuckerberg. In recent times, we've seen countless startups either fail, succeed and become evil Big Tech, or fail and become evil anyways like Theranos. On top of that, when startups finally get their big payday, the developers often get screwed over, so what was all the sacrifice for? Working normal hours is just much healthier unless you really have some realistic goal that you're sprinting for.

Re: 1x Programming

#152

Post by rtlfe »

munificent wrote: post #139
rtlfe wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I believe strongly that you can only have a happy life if you love what you do in your day job This is bad news for the huge amount of people with jobs like trash collector or grocery bagger.

I think you're making an assumption here that menial or dirty jobs are always unrewarding, but that's not my experience. I've met many people doing the kind of jobs you describe who find it satisfying. They may love using their hands, making the world a little cleaner, helping others, or just like their coworkers. Some say they like the simplicity of a job where it's easy to tell when you did it well and you never ne…

There's a huge difference between "find it satisfying" and "love what you do."

Re: 1x Programming

#153

Post by AlchemistCamp »

This is interesting to see, having been slowly going through Tim's book Rust in Action when I get the time.

I think he did a great job with the book, but I still lean a bit more towards enjoying not just programming but the CS-side of the work. It feels great to make an ergonomic, dev-friendly API. It also feels great to leverage mathematics to do something faster or better with software than otherwise possible.

Re: 1x Programming

#154

Post by gumby »

vlunkr wrote: post #148
klipt wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My friend is a respected surgeon, but when he clocks out of the hospital he goes cycling and to the beach. But to become a surgeon, he probably had to put in ridiculous hours for years as a med student and then resident. Going through that gauntlet is what earned him the reasonable hours and good pay, by reducing his competition. Similarly the people doing leetcode are doing it to stand above the competition and ma…

> Basically the general rule is if you desire above average money, you have to put in above average effort at some point in your career. My (probably cynical) take is that most SV devs are also 1x. You make the big bucks not just by being a 10x dev, but by some combination of going to the right schools, making the right connections, learning how to negotiate and when to look for new jobs, learning to jump through the…

> My (probably cynical) take is that most SV devs are also 1x.

Not at all cynical and why not? That's basically my impression and I've been hiring people here for 30+ years.

A team needs a mix of people with differing skills and interests. Even notice how "all star" games are so boring? no sabermetics used in picking those people. And in any company, 90+% of the effort is routine stuff, especially once you've launched.

This applies to non-programmers too.

Re: 1x Programming

#157

Post by troupe »

dsr_ wrote: post #28

In Peopleware, DeMarco and Lister write: Count on the best people outperforming the worst by about 10:1. Count on the best performer being about 2.5 times better than the median performer. Count on the half that are better-than-median performers outdoing the other half by more than 2:1. What nearly everyone who has read that remembers is the following: The best people outperform the average by 10x. Spot a difference?

If the worst performers on the team weren't creating negative value (the team would be more productive without them) then that was an incredibly good team to start with.

Re: 1x Programming

#158

Post by throwaway98797 »

systemvoltage wrote: post #125
_moof wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once had a boss who espoused all these principles while simultaneously telling us we needed to work nights and weekends to hit completely arbitrary deadlines. (American aerospace company.) I honestly couldn't believe what I was hearing. I stuck around just long enough to hit my cliff, buy a little stock, and then run for the hills.

You can always raise a question (especially in a meeting where your entire team is present): “What’s driving the deadline?” And then let your boss fumble if they are making things up, aka arbitrary deadlines.

“because I say so” and now you are never getting promoted

Re: 1x Programming

#159

Post by systemvoltage »

throwaway98797 wrote: post #158
systemvoltage wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can always raise a question (especially in a meeting where your entire team is present): “What’s driving the deadline?” And then let your boss fumble if they are making things up, aka arbitrary deadlines.

“because I say so” and now you are never getting promoted

I think it is entirely a fair question to ask. What's driving the dealine gives team a perspective of the stake holders and what needs to be accomplished.

The team collectively ought to be questioning it. Not one individual.

Re: 1x Programming

#160

Post by gernb »

P_I_Staker wrote: post #99
gernb wrote: post #41

Something that came up recenty for me. I took a job at FAANG company and my productivity from my POV sucks! I doubt I've written more than 2k lines of code in 9 months! I'm debugging hardware/driver issues in a giant code base (~250k files) that I don't know and APIs I've not used before. Conversely, in my own hobby code I wrote ~2k lines in the last 10 days. It makes me wonder how often 10x is about circumstance vs…

> I've written more than 2k lines of code in 9 months! I don't find this astonishing at all. That being said, I work in an industry riddled with red tape and debugging. It wouldn't be a shock to me if you wrote less than 200 lines, maybe even less than 20-50. > It makes me wonder how often 10x is about circumstance vs programmer skill Often times it is.

Yes, I've written less then 100 lines of "real" code and at most 1900 of tests.
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